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Trump may send U.S. troops to Mexico border, but migrants undeterred

Jose Garcia, a migrant from Honduras en route to the United States, rests in a public square as he waits to regroup with more migrants, in Tecun Uman, Guatemala October 25, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Phil Stewart and Delphine Schrank

WASHINGTON/PIJIJIAPAN, Mexico (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration may send up to 1,000 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, officials said on Thursday, as Trump hammered away at the issue of illegal immigration two weeks ahead of congressional elections.

Trump’s threat was sparked by the advance of a caravan of Central American migrants trekking through Mexico, headed toward the United States.

“I am bringing out the military for this National Emergency. They will be stopped!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

But the migrants appeared undeterred on Thursday night as several thousand of them bedded down more than 1,000 miles (1,610 km) from the U.S. border, in the town of Pijijiapan in Mexico’s southern Chiapas state, after hiking hours from their last stop.

“Whatever Trump may say, he’s not going to hold us back,” said Denis Omar Contreras, a caravan organizer from Honduras, who plans to help lead the group to northern Mexico. Many said the fear of returning to a violent homeland loomed larger than the president’s threats.

“We’ve come fleeing our country. If we return to Honduras, the gangs will probably kill us,” he said.

Trump and his fellow Republicans have sought to make the caravan and immigration into major issues before the Nov. 6 elections, in which Republicans are battling to keep control of Congress.

Trump, who has maintained a hard line on immigration since taking office last year, is considering a plan to ban entry of migrants at the southern border and deny them asylum, according to media reports.

The reports offered few details. A White House official said “a wide range of administrative, legal and legislative options” were being considered, but that no decisions had been made.

The possibility of executive action to lock out any migrants in the caravan and the likely positioning of more soldiers at the U.S. border with Mexico could energize Trump supporters at the ballot box. Any ban would face likely legal challenges.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in an interview with Fox News Channel that her department had asked the Pentagon for help to bolster its capabilities as it polices the border, including asking for “some air support … some logistics, planning, vehicle barriers, engineering.”

The DHS request could require deploying between 800 and 1,000 active-duty troops, two U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. military is prohibited from carrying out civilian law enforcement on American soil unless specifically authorized by Congress.

There are currently 2,100 National Guardsmen along the border, but the DHS request could lead to the first large-scale deployment of active-duty U.S. military forces to support the border protection mission under Trump.

‘GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY’

“To those in the Caravan, turnaround, we are not letting people into the United States illegally. Go back to your Country and if you want, apply for citizenship like millions of others are doing!” Trump tweeted on Thursday.

More than 1,000 people arrived in Guatemala on Monday, part of a second caravan, but have since divided into smaller groups to push on northward.

The larger caravan is now in southern Mexico and left Honduras nearly two weeks ago. It numbered more than 5,000 when it settled in the town of Mapastepec on Wednesday night, a local official said. Many are fleeing violence, poverty and government corruption in their home countries.

“I wish he could see that we are doing this from our heart, with great desire to move forward,” said Jose Rodriguez, 29, referring to the U.S. president.

Trump pledged during the 2016 presidential race to build a wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico. But the funding for his signature campaign promise has been slow to materialize.

In April, frustrated by lack of progress on the wall, Trump ordered the National Guard to help secure the border.

Adam Isacson, an official at the Washington Office on Latin America, a group that advocates for migrant rights, expressed misgivings about the potential deployment.

“Even if it’s a short-term deployment, it’s another step toward militarization of our border,” Isacson said, adding that 40 percent of people being apprehended at the border were children and families.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington and Delphine Schrank in Pijijiapan; Additional reporting by Makini Brice, Steve Holland and Yeganeh Torbati and Eric Beech in Washington, Michael O’Boyle in Mexico City and Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City; Editing by Will Dunham and Peter Cooney)

Police find packages sent to ex-U.S. intel chief Clapper, Senator Booker

A U.S. Postal Inspection Service facility is pictured near Miami International Airport, in Miami, Florida, U.S., October 25, 2018. REUTERS/Zach Fagenson

By Zachary Fagenson

MIAMI (Reuters) – Authorities found two more suspicious packages on Friday addressed to U.S. Senator Cory Booker and James Clapper, the former U.S. director of national intelligence, amid a manhunt for the person who sent bombs to prominent Democrats and critics of U.S. President Donald Trump.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) walks to an elevator as he leaves the Senate chamber after a procedural vote on the confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., October 5, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

The 11th package was found at a mail sorting facility in Florida and was addressed to Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, the FBI said on Twitter. A 12th package was addressed to James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, and sent to CNN, the cable network reported.

Meanwhile, a local police bomb squad and canine units joined federal investigators on Thursday to examine a sprawling U.S. mail distribution center at Opa-Locka, northwest of Miami, Miami-Dade County police said.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that Florida appeared to be the starting point for at least some of the bomb shipments.

“Some of the packages went through the mail. They originated, some of them, from Florida,” she said during an interview with Fox News Channel on Thursday. “I am confident that this person or people will be brought to justice.”

Authorities called the parcel bombs an act of terrorism. They were sent less than two weeks before national elections that could alter the balance of power in Washington.

FILE PHOTO: Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election” on Capitol Hill in Washington, U .S., May 8, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

No one has claimed responsibility for the bombs, and the public was asked to report any tips.

All the people targeted were frequently maligned by right-wing critics. They included Democratic Party donor George Soros, former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, and former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said that at least five of the packages bore a return address from the Florida office of U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Authorities believe the packages, which were intercepted before reaching their intended recipients, all went through the U.S. Postal Service at some point, a source said. None detonated and no one has been hurt.

The devices were thought to have been fashioned from bomb-making designs widely available on the internet, a federal law enforcement source told Reuters.

Still, investigators are treating the devices as “live” explosives, not a hoax, said James O’Neill, the New York City police commissioner. Two of the parcels surfaced there.

“It does remain possible that further packages have been or could be mailed,” William Sweeney, assistant director of the FBI, told a news conference in New York.

Investigators have declined to say whether the devices were built to be functional. Bomb experts and security analysts say that based on their rudimentary construction it appeared they were more likely designed to sow fear rather than to kill.

The parcels each consisted of a manila envelope with a bubble-wrap interior containing “potentially destructive devices,” the FBI said. Each was affixed with a computer-printed address label and six U.S. “Forever” postage stamps, the agency said.

Others who received the bombs were former Attorney General Eric Holder, former CIA director John Brennan, U.S. Representative Maxine Waters of California, and actor Robert De Nero. Two packages were sent both to Waters and Biden.

Brennan’s package was sent in care of the New York bureau of CNN, where he has appeared as an on-air analyst.

The episode sparked an outcry from Trump’s critics, who charged that his inflammatory rhetoric against Democrats and the press has created a climate for politically motivated violence.

After first calling for “unity” and civil discourse on Wednesday, Trump lashed out again Thursday at the “hateful” media. His supporters accused Democrats of unfairly suggesting the president was to blame for the bomb scare.

“Funny how lowly rated CNN, and others, can criticize me at will, even blaming me for the current spate of Bombs and ridiculously comparing this to September 11th and the Oklahoma City bombing, yet when I criticize them they go wild and scream, “it’s just not Presidential!” Trump said on Twitter at about 3:15 a.m. EST (0715 GMT) on Friday.

(Reporting by Zachary Fagenson; Additional reporting by Gabriella Borter, Jonathan Allen and Barbara Goldberg in New York; Mark Hosenball and Susan Heavey in Washington; Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Bill Trott and Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Powerful quake shakes western Greece, no major injuries

A child looks at the damaged pier of the port of Zakynthos, following an earthquake off the Zakynthos Island, Greece, October 26, 2018. REUTERS/Costas Baltas

By Angeliki Koutantou and Michele Kambas

ATHENS (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake shook western Greece early on Friday, damaging a port and a 15th century monastery, but causing no major injuries, officials and local media said.

The quake sent out tremors felt as far afield as Libya, Italy, Malta and Albania. Greek authorities initially issued a tsunami warning then withdrew the alert.

The magnitude 6.4 quake struck in the Ionian Sea, 50 km (31 miles) south of the island of Zakynthos, also known as Zante, Greece’s Geodynamic Institute reported. The U.S. Geological Survey rated the magnitude at 6.8.

Three people were taken to hospital on the island, two of them slightly injured, a spokesman for Greece’s civil protection agency said. A series of aftershocks, the highest at 5.6, rattled the island and power was briefly disrupted.

Tremors damaged a 15th-century monastery on the nearby islands of Strofades, local media in Zakynthos reported. They also left large cracks in the port of Zakynthos, though authorities there said operations would continue as usual.

“We are not facing any particular problems,” Zakynthos Mayor Pavlos Kolokotsas told Greek state broadcaster ERT. “Calm is being restored.”

Extensive damage was avoided because quake-prone Zakynthos had adopted seismic protection codes in construction, said Efthymios Lekkas, head of Greece’s Earthquake Planning and Protection Organisation.

“The energy unleashed, based on the angle of the faultline, fanned out towards Italy,” he added.

Italy’s Il Messaggero online news site said the quake was felt hundreds of kilometers away in southern Italy. Firefighters in Calabria, Puglia and Sicily received thousands of telephone calls from worried locals.

Zakynthos was all but destroyed in a 6.8 tremor in 1953. More than 140 people were killed in an earthquake north of Athens in 1999.

The quake was fairly shallow, according to the USGS, just 14 km (8.7 miles) below the seabed, which would have amplified shaking.

It struck at 1:54 a.m. (2254 GMT, Thursday). Greece straddles two tectonic plates and often suffers earthquakes.

The EMSC European quake agency said sea levels had risen slightly, by about 20 cm (7.87 inches), but the increase could be higher locally. It later tweeted sea level changes were also observed in Italy.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; Additional reporting by Sandra Maler in Washington; Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Peter Cooney, Toni Reinhold and Sanda Maler and Andrew Heavens)

U.S. military receives request for troops to protect border

By Phil Stewart and Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military has received a request from the Department of Homeland Security for active-duty troops on the U.S.-Mexico border, a U.S. official said on Thursday, after President Donald Trump said he was “bringing out the military” to guard against a caravan of Central American migrants trekking through Mexico.

The U.S. official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. military was examining the request that could require deploying between 800 and 1,000 active-duty troops to the border to assist with logistics and infrastructure.

The U.S. official said that any troops deployed to the border would not be involved in “law enforcement” activities, something that would be prohibited by a federal law dating to the 1870s.

That law restricts the use of the Army and other main branches of the military for civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil unless specifically authorized by Congress. But the military can provide support services to law enforcement and has done so on occasion since the 1980s.

Some specific statutes authorize the president to deploy troops within the United States for riot control or relief efforts after natural disasters.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has taken a hard line toward immigration – legal and illegal – since becoming president last year. On Monday, Trump said he had alerted the Border Patrol and the U.S. military that the migrant caravan was a national emergency.

Despite raising Trump’s ire, thousands of Central American men, women and children seeking to escape violence, poverty and government corruption in their home countries continued their journey toward the distant U.S. border. Under a full moon early on Thursday, they walked from Mapastepec, close to the Guatemala border in southern Mexico. A town official said there had been 5,300 migrants in Mapastepec on Wednesday night.

A second group of more than a thousand people has started a similar journey from Guatemala.

“I am bringing out the military for this National Emergency. They will be stopped!” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to the migrants.

White House officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Trump’s comments regarding a military deployment and a national emergency.

Trump and his fellow Republicans have sought to make the caravan and immigration major issues ahead of the Nov. 6 U.S. congressional elections in which the party is trying to maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

It is not new territory for Trump, who pledged during the 2016 presidential race to build a wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico. However, funding for his signature campaign promise has been slow to materialize even though his party controls Congress and the White House.

In April, frustrated by lack of progress on the wall, Trump ordered the National Guard to help secure the border in four southwestern states. There are currently 2,100 National Guard troops along the borders of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Also in April, Trump raised the prospect of sending active-duty military forces to the border to block illegal immigration, raising questions in Congress and among legal experts about troop deployments on American soil.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Additional reporting by Delphine Schrank in Mapastepec, Mexico; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Will Dunham)

At least 18 people, mostly children, die in flash flood in Jordan

A child survivor is helped as residents and relatives gather outside a hospital near the Dead Sea, Jordan October 25, 2018. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

DEAD SEA Jordan (Reuters) – At least 18 people, mainly schoolchildren and teachers, were killed on Thursday in a flash flood near Jordan’s Dead Sea that happened while they were on an outing, rescuers and hospital workers said.

Thirty-four people were rescued in a major operation involving police helicopters and hundreds of army troops, police chief Brigadier General Farid al Sharaa told state television. Some of those rescued were in a serious condition.

Many of those killed were children under 14. A number of families picnicking in the popular destination were also among the dead and injured, rescuers said, without giving a breakdown of numbers.

Hundreds of families and relatives converged on Shounah hospital a few kilometers from the resort area. Relatives sobbed and searched for details about the missing children, a witness said.

King Abdullah canceled a trip to Bahrain to follow the rescue operations, state media said.

Israel sent search-and-rescue helicopters to assist, an Israeli military statement said, adding the team dispatched at Amman’s request was operating on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea.

Civil defense spokesman Captain Iyad al Omar told Reuters the number of casualties was expected to rise. Rescue workers using flashlights were searching the cliffs near the shore of the Dead Sea where bodies had been found.

A witness said a bus with 37 schoolchildren and seven teachers had been on a trip to the resort area when the raging flood waters swept them into a valley.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Alison Williams)

U.S. bombs likely meant to scare rather than kill: experts

The exterior of one of the suspicious packages sent to multiple locations in the U.S., appears in this handout photo provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, October 24, 2018. The mailing address and return address have been edited out of the photo at source. FBI/Handout via REUTERS

By Bill Tarrant and Andrew Hay

(Reuters) – A series of package bombs this week that targeted U.S. Democratic politicians, media and public figures who are unpopular with right-wing activists was probably more of a scare tactic than a murder plot, security analysts said.

Two weeks before the U.S. mid-term elections, experts differed on whether the packages were sent by one person or a group. Police were examining the devices for forensic evidence, which might yield some answers.

None of the 10 bombs exploded and there was no claim of responsibility.

“What they wanted to do was scare people, cause disruption, but not necessarily hurt anybody, because if they’d wanted to hurt people the bombs would have gone off,” said Matthew Bradley, a former CIA agent and current regional security director of International SOS and Control Risks.

“My personal feeling is that this is some kind of a wacko, rather than an organization trying to accomplish something. Evil, mad, has a grudge. A little mix of all of these,” said University of Rhode Island chemistry professor Jimmie Oxley, an explosives expert.

While Oxley said she suspected a single bomber, Bradley said multiple people were probably involved because “it’s hard to coordinate that mail delivery on your own.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN on Thursday that the more packages authorities find, the faster investigators can track down the perpetrators.

“I would expect more,” Cuomo said, adding that the packages may be aimed at intimidating people. “They are bombs capable of detonation. They did not detonate. Was that purposeful or incidental?”

NO UNABOMBER

The thick manila envelopes were intercepted before any reached their intended recipients, who included former President Barack Obama, ex-Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Bradley ruled out a dedicated, smart and efficient killer such as Ted Kaczynski, the notorious Unabomber who kilted three and injured 23 in a three-decade campaign using sophisticated devices sent through the mail.

“There’s a little bit of disconnect, mentally for the person who’s doing this, it doesn’t sound like it’s a cold calculating person like Ted Kaczynski,” said Bradley. “This is more amateur than professional, but there’s also professionals who could have wanted it to look that way.”

In the most recent similar incident, five relatively advanced package bombs exploded in Austin, Texas, in March. Most were sent through Federal Express and triggered by movement. The suspected serial bomber Mark Conditt, 23, later blew himself up.

POORLY DESIGNED

Experts said that in contrast to the Unabomber and Conditt, this week’s would-be bomber used packages that were poorly designed and suspicious in appearance. The bombs seized this week, some of which were intercepted at U.S. Postal Service locations, were inside envelopes and were 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) long.

“The small size restricts what materials might actually function in it,” said Oxley, the University of Rhode Island professor who has built 130 pipe bombs at the request of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to aid investigators.

The reported presence of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in at least one of the devices led her to believe the bomb builder wrongly thought the relatively lightweight material would not be detected by X-ray.

“I would prefer to think this was a scare. But this has to be taken seriously,” she added.

(Reporting by Bill Tarrant in Los Angeles and Andrew Hay in New Mexico, additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and David Gregorio)

British Airways says a further 185,000 payment cards possibly hit in cyber attack

FILE PHOTO - People queue with their luggage for the British Airways check-in desk at Gatwick Airport in southern England, Britain, May 28, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

(Reuters) – International Airlines Group said an investigation into the theft of customers’ data at its unit British Airways showed the hackers may have stolen personal information from an additional 185,000 payment cards.

BA said in September that around 380,000 card payments were compromised, with hackers obtaining names, street and email addresses, credit card numbers, expiry dates and security codes – sufficient information to steal from accounts.

On Thursday, British Airways revised that number down, saying that only 244,000 of those originally identified were affected, but said additional customers could have been affected.

On the whole, the total number of payment cards potentially affected stood at 429,000 as of Thursday.

The hackers obtained names, street and email addresses, credit card numbers, expiry dates and in some cases, security codes – sufficient information to steal from accounts.

(Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

As winter comes, NATO kicks off largest maneuvers since Cold War

FILE PHOTO: U.S., German, Spanish and Polish troops of the NATO enhanced Forward Presence battle goups with their tanks get ready for the Iron Tomahawk exercise in Adazi, Latvia October 23, 2018. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

By Terje Solsvik

OSLO (Reuters) – Military forces from 31 countries began NATO’s largest exercise in decades, stretching from the Baltic Sea to Iceland, on Thursday, practicing military maneuvers close to Russia, which itself held a huge military drill last month.

As temperatures fell below freezing across training grounds in central Norway, giving a taste of what it means to defend NATO’s vast northern flank, some 50,000 troops, 250 aircraft and 10,000 tanks, trucks and other land-based vehicles were ready.

“Forces are in position, they are integrating and starting combat enhancement training for major battlefield operations over the next two weeks,” Colonel Eystein Kvarving at Norway’s Joint Headquarters told Reuters.

Dubbed Trident Juncture, the exercise is by far the biggest in Norway since the early 1980s, a sign that the alliance wants to sharpen its defenses after years of cost cuts and far-flung combat missions.

Increasingly concerned about Russia since it annexed Crimea in 2014, Norway has sought to double the number of U.S. Marines receiving training on its soil every year, a move criticized by Moscow.

Russia last month held its biggest maneuvers since 1981, called Vostok-2018 (East-2018), mobilizing 300,000 troops in a show of force close to China’s border which included joint drills with the Chinese and Mongolian armies.

NATO’s war games were originally meant to involve 35,000 troops, but the number grew in recent months and included the late addition of an aircraft carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman with some 6,000 personnel.

NATO fears Russia’s military build-up in the region could ultimately restrict naval forces’ ability to navigate freely, and on Oct. 19 the Truman became the first American aircraft carrier to enter the Arctic Circle since before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Although a solid majority of Norwegians support membership of NATO, whose secretary general is former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, some parties on the left would prefer that the country quit the alliance and form some type of military cooperation arrangement with its Nordic neighbors.

“The effect of this activity will increase the tension between Norway and Russia,” Socialist member of parliament Torgeir Knag Fylkesnes said of the exercise, adding that the presence of an aircraft carrier caused particular concern.

“You have to be quite hawkish to view this as something that brings peace in any way,” he told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos; Editing by Gwladys Fouche; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

CIA chief to brief Trump after hearing Khashoggi audio

FILE PHOTO: CIA Director nominee Gina Haspel testifies at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 9, 2018. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – CIA Director Gina Haspel will brief U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said after the spy agency chief heard an audio recording of the Saudi journalist’s death.

Haspel traveled to Turkey this week to review intelligence about the Khashoggi incident and heard an audio recording there of his death, sources told Reuters. Representatives for the CIA and Turkish intelligence declined to comment.

The United States has revoked visas for a number of Saudis thought to be responsible for Khashoggi’s death in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

Trump was scheduled to receive an intelligence briefing at 11:30 a.m..

The killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and a critic of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has sparked global condemnation and mushroomed into a major crisis for the world’s top oil exporter.

Trump was quoted by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday as saying that the crown prince bore ultimate responsibility for the operation that led to Khashoggi’s death.

Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor said on Thursday the murder of Khashoggi was premeditated, reversing previous official statements that the killing was unintended.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Mark Hosenball; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Alistair Bell)

U.S.-bound Central American migrants on the move in Mexico

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the United States, take a shower in the Mapastepec city center, Mexico October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

By Delphine Schrank and Ana Isabel Martinez

MAPASTEPEC, Mexico/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Central American migrants clustered for the night on Wednesday in a southern Mexico town after advancing on their trek toward the United States, despite Mexico’s vows to hinder their progress under pressure from the Trump administration.

Thousands of men, women and children, mostly from Honduras, shuffled throughout the afternoon into the town of Mapastepec in Chiapas state, still more than 1,100 miles (1,770 km) from the U.S. border.

A migrant woman rests roadside with her child while traveling with a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the United States as they make their way to Mapastepec from Huixtla, Mexico October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

As nightfall came and rain began to pour, they camped out on sidewalks in the small town, wrapping knapsacks in plastic and huddling beneath awnings.

Their trek has drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has used the migrant caravan to fire up support for his Republican party in Nov. 6 congressional elections.

It has also prompted Washington to put pressure on the Mexican government to halt the migrants’ progress.

The caravan, which began as a march of a few hundred people from the crime-wracked Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Oct. 13, swelled into the thousands as it was joined by migrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Mexican immigration authorities have told the migrants they will not be able to cross illegally into the United States.

Alex Mensing of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a group that organized a previous migrant caravan that angered Trump in April, said on Wednesday the current caravan is comprised of about 10,000 people.

Pueblo Sin Fronteras is accompanying the caravan, which Mensing forecast would fragment in due course.

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the United States, are seen dancing in the Mapastepec city center, Mexico October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

“It’s very unlikely that 10,000 people will arrive together at a border city between Mexico and the United States,” he told a conference call with reporters.

“There will be people who stay in Mexico, there will be people who go to different borders because everyone has their own plan and different support where they have family members.”

Migrants began departing Huixtla in the wee hours of the morning, fanning out for about a mile and half on the road toward Mapastepec. They walked in flip flops and old sneakers. Many hitched rides from hundreds of cars, trucks and public transportation.

A Chiapas church group said they cooked for a full day, then drove over an hour from the mountains to reach the caravan, where they handed out coffee, sugary bread and tamales, cornmeal patties stuffed with meat and vegetables.

Every time they stopped to serve, migrants flung their small packs aboard their pickup, hoping to catch a ride.

“No, no,” church volunteer Liz Magail Rodriguez said, pointing to the containers of food. “With these tamales, you’ll have energy to walk all day.”

On Wednesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called U.S. Vice President Mike Pence “crazy” and “extremist” for accusing his government of financing the caravan. Pence said on Tuesday that the group was “financed by Venezuela,” without providing evidence.

Mexican authorities have tried to walk a fine line between responding to Trump’s demands to close its borders and respecting migrants’ rights.

Mexico’s interior ministry said in a statement on Wednesday evening that about 3,630 people are part of the migrant caravan in Mexico that was advancing from Huixtla, around 30 miles (50 km) north of the Guatemalan border, to Mapastepec.

Reuters could not independently verify how many people were in that group.

A separate group of least 1,000 migrants, mostly Hondurans, has been moving slowly through Guatemala toward Mexico. Some media have put the number above 2,000.

(Additional reporting by Jose Cortes in Mapastepec, Corina Pons and Vivian Sequera in Caracas; Writing by Michael O’Boyle and Daina Beth Solomon Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Tom Brown, Toni Reinhold)

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